I Go Back to May 1937

When looking over the poems in the large packet of poems we received earlier in the semester, the one poem that intrigued me was “I Go Back to May 1937” by Sharon Olds. I have read this poem previously, and did not understand the poem the first time I read it a few years ago. But then again, I was around 11 when I first read it. When I read it this time around I was very intrigued about how the poem revolved around time. And more specifically the marriage and break up of that marriage of the poet’s parent’s. The poet writes the poem as if she were a bystander in the meeting of her parents. She speaks in third person, and pleads in vain to her parents not to get married.

“They are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
Innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
Don’t do it – she’s the wrong woman.”

She goes through the way her parent meet, to their first date, and their “wide eyed innocence” when they rush into their marriage. This phrase is so integral to the meaning of the poem that it’s hard to over look. The speaker of the poem is trying to convey the thought that even when two people are young and “so in love” that sometimes they are not fully mature enough to understand the entire scope of their feelings.

I also like how the speaker is willing to let her parents go through future unhappiness and further traumatic events to occur just so she can be born. I also really enjoyed how she (in my opinion) thanks her parents at the end for doing all that they did wrong like getting married, doing cruel and terrible things to each other, and finally letting their marital problems affect the children of the marriage.

I thought the poem was unique in the way that the subject matter was presented.

Oh and this is my 8th blog post... Go me! :)

*Donya Botkan*